Polarization
I first heard the term "polarization" in the modern American context in a book The Second Civil War: How Extreme Partisonship has Paralyzed Washington and Polarized America, by political analyst Ronald Brownstein, published in 2007. Again and again, Brownstein frets over important elections decided by "razor-thin margins". The lack of common ground, expressed by politcal-party loyalty and the absence of cross-voters in Congress, suggests deep divisions in the body-politic, although the voters don't like cross-overs by politicians who represent them.
Brownstein and other use terms like "disunity", "political strife", and "polarization" open-endedly, appearing to understand little of the issues that divide us or attaching much intentionality to them. How do we move our troubled nation forward if our leaders and intellectuals do not offer definition about the mentality of the warring sides, starting with their own? Maybe that kind of talk will lead to calls for a referendum, a formal division of the nation into new countries, and end of the United States as we know it.
What are the philosophical touchstones for each side? Can our leaders risk telling us which writer or philosopher gives them definition of their principles? Our political parties act like sales-personnel selling a get-rich-quick scheme. Don't they really need to tell what direction they want to take the nation?
Let us tap into their preconceptions of things. Instead of wooing us with pipe-dreams, tell us about their mentors and historical heroes. Delineate the differences between them and the other party; or does a low-brow, unsophisticated approach to governing make them want to ask, "What do we want to do that for?"
If our political leaders will risk answering honestly, they will quote Vince Lombardi: "Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing." In doing so, they define the "game" as little more than a short-term experience of being "better than," not "different from". We will not get very far is we only express political discontent in terms of an athletic contest.
Like the football team, the political party enjoys a celebratory supper or a consolation something-or-other. The politicians congratulate both teams for their efforts and say to the losers "Better luck next year!" because continuing the game is good for business—their business, anyway.
I don't think it is as good for our "business", of keeping alive the idealism, unity, and intentionality that has made this nation so great, not while it has to move forward in an environment poisoned by mutual hostlity and "policy-dysfunction". (Another Ronald Brownstein phrase).
Political competitors think like athletic competitors—in real time. No yesterday, no tomorrow, only right f-------g now! The players treat philosophical principles like trappings, what the film-director Alfred Hitchcock called a "Macguffin", just a meaningless prop along for the ride. The prediction of a win for one team spurs the other to greater effort to enable an upset victory.
For athletics, the ritual remains the same, from one year to the next. The old players move on with their lives, and let new players take to the field to answer the challenge. The terms of battle remain the same—the same rules, the same effort, skill, and heroism. Then, it's over! For the players, the main lingering memory is the injuries, which bother them for the rest of their lives. The rest of the ritual counts as hardly more than a Macguffin-fueled fantasy.
Business pursuits are more like ritual in the real-world. For confirmation of this truth, one only has to look at stockholders and employees cheering at company meetings for Apple or Microsoft, or the employees at Space-X cheering at a launch-site. They count on victory for the sake of their jobs and the future of their pensions. If their companies loses out in this competition, they likely won't cheer much at an athletic contest, either.